Rodan's Enigma - Chapter One

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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copyright © Wayne D Austin 2006 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. Condition of Sale This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A Wayne Austin Original

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RODAN’S ENIGMA CHAPTER 1 Sifour’s image popped up to float before Wandar and, amidst a backdrop of soft shrieks and whistles, muted red and yellow swirls flowed along the sides of the h’Slaitiarr’s dark, bluish-grey body. Its global interpreter translated. ‘Greetings, Wandar Kryzansky. Rodan Tyson is dead.’ ‘What?’ She gasped and her right hand flew to her mouth. ‘That can’t be!’ ‘Our source is reliable,’ Sifour continued after a short pause. ‘We have rescued a robot from the space station’s vicinity and it has verified that Rodan Tyson is not alive.’ ‘It is absolutely certain?’ Wandar asked, even though she knew the answer after seeing Sifour’s preliminary scans of the half-destroyed space station. Anil Prasad, her husband and the remaining member of her little team, came up from behind and placed his arms around her to provide some comfort. She grasped his arms and pulled them tighter, thankful for his presence. Her last hope had been dashed. All during the flight in, she had kept her spirits up by imagining how she would greet Rodan when she arrived. First a kiss and a hug, and then she was going to thrash him to within an inch of his life for disobeying her orders and putting her through such torture. But he had disobeyed her again. And died. ‘Yes,’ Sifour’s answer came back, ‘we have not detected the presence of any living being in or around the space station. I will await your arrival before we begin the investigation. However, the robot, Aldar, has provided a data cube with the information that the human agent, Marla Brown, stole from the Alien Research Institute.’ ‘Oh? How did he get that, Sifour?’ Anil asked. ‘Rodan Tyson retrieved it from Aisev and gave it to Aldar when the demolition of the station began.’ page 1

RODAN’S ENIGMA ‘At least he foiled the attempt to pass it on to the Human Security Studies—’ A lump formed in Wandar’s throat and she swallowed as she fought back the tears. ‘So he bought us time to stop that battle escalating into a full-blown war, if....’ No, it was no use asking Sifour how those renegade warships and their fighters had vanished. Even though it had to know, it had said it didn’t know and that was that. ‘That is unlikely,’ said Sifour. ‘Since all were killed, the information could not have been passed on. From Aldar’s personal log and recordings from the station’s sensor logs, it seems that Rodan Tyson was more intent on gaining knowledge about his father and what happened to him during the war than on trying to stop Aisev.’ Wandar twisted to glance at Anil. ‘Why, what happened to his father? There was nothing in his background check.’ ‘There was a brief mention,’ said Anil. ‘If I remember, his father died as a prisoner — not an uncommon occurrence. I didn’t bother to delve any further. Anyway, there was nothing to indicate that Rodan harboured any grievances toward the slaters, er, your race, Sifour. Though ... now I think about it, he is on the list of people banned from your planets ... oh what was it? Something about biological weapons...?’ He shrugged. ‘No, I can’t remember.’ Some whirls flickered blue and skidded along Sifour’s flank. ‘We consider him a war criminal for creating the biogenetic weapons used on our home world during the war.’ ‘But he was never charged,’ said Wandar. ‘He managed to have that concession dropped from the peace treaty. It is interesting. His opponent at the negotiations was a h’Slaitiarr identified as Aisev.’ Wandar stiffened as bits of the puzzle fell into place. ‘This Aisev?’ ‘Yes. That loss brought my supergroup to power. I should be grateful to Rodan, but I cannot be. The page 2

RODAN’S ENIGMA legacy of his work pains all h’Slaitiarr to this day.’ ‘But he never said anything when he identified Aisev,’ said Anil. ‘No, he did.’ Wandar frowned. She had wanted to delve. Rodan had been so agitated and now she knew why. ‘He said he vaguely remembered it from the treaty negotiations—’ ‘That’s right! He won something — a ... a concession.’ ‘I remember the look on his face,’ said Wandar. ‘It was more than surprise, but he just brushed it off, saying it was nothing important. I meant to follow it up.’ ‘You will find Aldar’s logs most informing,’ said Sifour, ‘and disturbing.’ ‘Why?’ Wandar asked. ‘It appears that we initiated the war against the Interstellar Alliance based on a misunderstanding — something Rodan Tyson termed a “joke”.’ ‘A joke? What do you mean?’ ‘It is a form of what your species calls humour. Some of us are only now starting to come to an understanding of this concept. The discussion is contained in the information I have sent you.’ ‘Very well, we’ll review it before we arrive. That should be in about....’ ‘Six hours from now,’ said Anil. ‘I look forward to beginning the investigation then.’ Sifour’s image vanished. Wandar turned in Anil’s arms to face him. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered and buried her face in his neck. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable, but there were times when it was good to just give in. ‘Oh Rodan, Rodan, Rodan,’ she mumbled. Anil tightened his hug and began to stroke her hair down the back of her head. ‘It’s not your fault. You knew his chances of surviving once the slaters got hold of him. In fact, it’s amazing he survived right up to page 3

RODAN’S ENIGMA the last minute.’ Wandar pulled back and scowled at him. ‘Don’t try to make me feel good! I’m not in the mood. Besides, I don’t feel guilty. He shouldn’t have disobeyed me. Damn him!’ Feeling vulnerable wasn’t working for her. She straightened up and pushed Anil away, her face once again a mask of control. But she did feel guilty, damn him! She had let herself be swayed against her better judgement and now he was dead, damn him! Stupid amateur. ‘I want to be alone for a while,’ she growled and then sniffed. Anil paused at the doorway and cocked his head when she brushed away a tear. ‘If you need me....’ His words hung in the air as the door slid shut behind him.  Events had happened so quickly, they were like a blur. Wandar stared at the magnificent panorama of the black hole that filled the wall display and failed to appreciate its majestic beauty. How could she? Rodan had died in its presence. How unlucky was it to arrive just when both the white dwarf and its partner, a large, yellow, misshapen pear of a star, were at their closest approach? They hung like two blazing moons above the black hole, both trailing glowing streams to the warped accretion disk that hid the monster within, and because of that, the station was deserted, except for the robot. Those eighty evacuated scientists would have certainly tipped the balance in the slaters’ favour. And Rodan would still be alive so she could extract her pound of flesh. She sniffed and studied the accretion disk’s cloud-like whorl, like she had just noticed it for the first time. It was twisted and buckled, its surface criss-crossed with ripples and broken here and there by little eddies. All frozen, as if caught in a pause. At any other time, she would have marvelled at its deadly beauty. If anything, it reminded her of one of page 4

RODAN’S ENIGMA Rodan’s curious works of art that she had studied briefly, when his hotel suite had reconfigured to match his apartment’s living room. This natural work of art played with trickles of colour as well, in the way the disk’s outer edge merged from the blackness of space as a faint, wan red, which faded through a soft wan tan, before deepening to an intense dark blue around the miniscule eye of the storm where the black hole tore off chunks to satisfy its never-ending appetite. And splattered across it, as if from a rainbow palette of raindrops, were bright glowing hotspots, which peeked through from within. She sighed, then shook her head and sucked in her upper lip. So many bad memories. The space station slid into view, silhouetted against the accretion disk’s soft glow. Here the dirty deed had been done, and by fellow humans — traitors who deserved no mercy. She bit on her lip until she winced. They had been most thorough. Of the two intersecting rings, half of one floated beside the station as debris, while a great bite had been taken out of the other ring. And something had feasted on the control sphere at the centre point of the connecting tube that ran between the diametrically opposite connecting points of the two rings. It was in part of the missing ring that Rodan had died, as had the woman, Marla Brown. Wandar hugged herself and sighed to stop crying. She was being foolish — and weak. It wasn’t her fault. Pity those aliens couldn’t have rescued Rodan and returned him to her. After all, they had taken the renegade ships. Anil’s analysis of the sensor vids showed how the black circles in the cosmic ray background noise appeared just before those interstellar ships and all their fighters disappeared and then vanished straight after. And despite this evidence, Sifour still denied all knowledge of any alien species, apart from humans. Talk about a twisted universe. Out of the blue, Sifour had introduced her to another h’Slaitiarr, which page 5

RODAN’S ENIGMA spoke on behalf of the h’Slaitiarr government — a most unusual h’Slaitiarr. Sifour referred to it only as Master. Wandar thought she knew of all senior h’Slaitiarr in the government on Kharwaisheeyarrn, but not this one. She tried to massage away the frown from her forehead. There was so much to take in. Too much. The station’s ramparts stopped growing and she felt lighter on her feet as the deceleration began to decrease. Her frown deepened and she gave up trying to get rid of it. All that was left was the investigation. Then she could go home and put this whole sorry mess behind her. This Master, there was something disconcerting about it. In some ways it seemed almost human, at least in the way it interacted with Anil and herself. At times it seemed friendly — almost jovial in the way that it humoured both of them — even Sifour — like they were children. And that was the odd thing. The h’Slaitiarr had no concept of humour, so this h’Slaitiarr must have acted that way without realizing it. Perhaps it was a quirk of the global interpreter. Wandar shrugged and dismissed a nagging feeling that there was more to this h’Slaitiarr than met the eye. After all, it had brought an offer from the h’Slaitiarr government to negotiate a mutual obligation treaty with the Interstellar Alliance in the hope of eliminating any possibility of such a threat arising again. This Master even hinted at possible concessions with regard to that exotic shielding used on their warships — weird. If she didn’t know better, she could have sworn it wasn’t h’Slaitiarr. Now that was a twisted thought. It made her smile. Her door chimed. ‘Yes?’ It slid open and Anil floated in. ‘Are you ready?’ ‘If we have to, we have to.’ She sighed, not relishing the next few days. ‘I’ve knocked up a report on that robot’s logs—’ page 6

RODAN’S ENIGMA ‘Yes, yes, I know!’ ‘Come on,’ Anil cajoled her, ‘there’s no point in being like that. I was just going to suggest we send a report so Candace can notify his family and friends, you know, stuff like that. The comm ship’s next transfer is in ten minutes.’ Wandar floated into his arms and pecked him on the lips. ‘Sorry — you’re right. I’m acting stupid. Yes, send the report. Do I need to sign it?’ He nodded. ‘Okay, give me a minute, yes?’ Anil kissed her forehead. ‘Yes, boss. Let’s get this over with and go home.’ He let go and floated toward the door. ‘One minute!’ he warned and winked. ‘So, you want a little punishment?’ Wandar called after him, pretending at trying to keep a laugh out of her stern voice. ‘I can arrange that. You will be sorry!’ The door swished shut, cutting off Anil’s chuckle. And her tension broke. That was what she loved about Anil, his ability to raise her spirits — and his willingness to be tied down and spanked, and whipped, and to suffer what else she could think of. No wonder she loved him. Twisted universe or not, he was her point of stability. She broke into a melancholic smile.

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